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I need some help please.... I have always ridden Rockshox Recon's (Silver RL) and just purchased one of the CRC discounted 2019 Revelations (29er/140mm - £270). I really enjoy the Recon (2021 - 140mm) on my Ragley Big Al, It just works well and is functional, I just can't seem to bring myself to fit the Revelation. The internet may have got the better of me here, having read some negative comments about the Revelation Motion Control, is this valid, or would you fit the Revelation and enjoy ? I take it the upgrade from the Recon (32mm stanchions) to the Rev (35mm stanchions) would be a very noticeable improvement ? Riding trail centres, cross country & woodland trails etc 88kgs.
I would take the Revs over the Recons. Try using them for a month or two then swapping them back.
I'd say that the only real compromise on the Revelation is the motion control damper. Having said that, you won't have anything better in the recon. However, the revelation has upgrade options from Rockshox and 3rd party tuners. The air spring is more tunable and at 88kg, I'd be surprised if you didn't notice the increase in chassis stiffness. Worth getting torque caps for you hubs if you haven't already (I don't know if they feature on the recon).
I can't think of a single reason not to fit it.
They're probably comparing it to a Pike or Lyrik, and yes it won't be as good - but it'll be far better than a 32mm Recon, especially for a chunkier chap.
Oh, and put a bit of effort in setting it up properly. Sag etc and then go do some repeated runs to fine-tune.
Thanks all.... I need to stop reading so much and go and fit the fork.
Just get it fitted - it will be better. Recon is quite noodly - especially at 88kgs. The air spring in the revelation will also be better then the recon.
Damper wise I don’t know if your recon is turnkey or moco damping - my nephew has a recon gold rl with 130mm of travel (and moco damping) but back to back with say a Yari (also moco) it didn’t feel anywhere near as good.
I personally found I would break the mo co dampers on my old revelations
If you break the plastic compression setup then it's easily fixed by just dropping in a Novyparts Splug (also a Fast Rev Up, but it's far more expensive and complicated)
I got some of the revs from Wiggle thanks to the PSA a couple of weeks back. Replaced some Judys. I did get the updated air shaft as a I needed to reduce travel to 120mm. This is the newer 2021 C1 version.
I'm knocking on 95kg and they're so much better than the Judys. Ride higher in their travel, smoother and much much stiffer. Currently playing around with air pressure.
If I get the yearning I can always update the MoCo damper to a Charger damper or maybe one of the YariUp damper. Then effectively I have a cheap(ish) pike.
Update: Steerer tube now cut and the air token removed (mine only had 1 air token fitted). One thing I noticed immediately was the weight difference between the two 140mm forks, the Rockshox charts have the Recon Silver RL around 2,363gms and the Rev around 1903gms.
Given the recon has smaller diameter stanchions than the revelation then it must have either had heavy / low grade alloy stanchions or steel ones.
With tokens it’s generally the shorter travel the more tokens for any given fork. E.g for 140mm travel I think my Pike would have 3 tokens but at 150mm I was running 2.
However with the moco damper in my Yari I found it was slightly hard to get anywhere near full travel at 160mm so I ran it with no tokens at all and that worked well.
You’ll have to get out and ride it and report back on here. The revelation should be a chunk better than a basic recon.
I'd see a 3rd party damper as making the fork "comfortable".
At least you can buy a 3rd party damper.
There were none where I live. I had to buy a whole new fork that came with all features out of the box.